


Two Birds Walk Into A Bar

by onelonelystory



Category: Batman - All Media Types, DCU (Comics), Red Hood and the Outlaws (Comics)
Genre: Brothers, Family, Gen, Injury
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-04
Updated: 2020-01-04
Packaged: 2021-02-26 09:53:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,574
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21967387
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/onelonelystory/pseuds/onelonelystory
Summary: “Preserve your big ol’ brain, babybird, I’ve heard good things.”Tim tips his head back and laughs out loud. “It, like the rest of me, is not good enough,” he cackles, clapping Jason on the back like they’re in on a joke.Jason is not in on this joke. Jason doesn’t know how the acting CEO of a Fortune 500 company and number 17 on the JL’s roster of Smart People has an inferiority complex. Jason gives Tim his drink back.
Relationships: Tim Drake & Jason Todd
Comments: 11
Kudos: 225





	Two Birds Walk Into A Bar

Middle class Gotham was a strange place. 

Like, technically it was in Gotham - it was pretty much desensitized to the outlandish headlines, and they didn’t bother whispering when gossiping about the Batman - but no one was buying fear-gas masks illegally on the corner for three bucks a pop, or dropping a few hundred thousand on the latest bullet-proof stained glass windows, specially designed to keep Killer Croc from interrupting your latest gala.

For Jason Todd, middle class Gotham was the place to be if he wanted to get out of the city for a while, but still had to be on hand for when some fragment of the rogue gallery inevitably broke out of Arkham again some time that night. 

So after a long day of buying groceries, thwarting major crime syndicates, and arguing with his favourite librarian about Oscar Wilde, he wandered away from Crime Alley towards a strip mall between a small engineering firm and a public middle school. He wasn’t a hundred percent sure how, but after perusing the windows of a dozen different family chains, he ended up in a small, rustic-looking piano bar.

It seemed too decent a place to be a Jason Todd kind of bar; there was a painting of a sassafras forrest hung over by some barely-scuffed wooden tables as opposed to bare walls and toppled bar stools. 

Maybe it was just because Jason hadn’t gotten around to toppling them, or maybe it was because the bar patrons seemed to be mostly old white dudes without a drunken will to do much more than pass out. 

It almost seemed like the kind of company he’d find at a party he’d crash, except none of them seemed to turn their noses up at him and it was Bruce Wayne free. 

No quite exactly Bat free, though. Jason had heard Red Robin was out of commission with a busted leg and a broken rib. He had expected the twerp to be playing video games, or hacking Lex Luthor’s personal computer for kicks, or ignoring medical direction to stop petty theft... not playing the blues at a dimly lit piano as the backing track to a quiet bar. 

It had been a while since Jason had seen Tim without his mask, but nothing had really changed. He looked too babyfaced to pass for an adult and Jason would wonder how he’d gotten in without an ID, but Tim didn’t seem to be drinking and could also probably get into Fort Knox if he so wished.

Tim finished a Frank Sinatra song with a restrained flick of his wrists, and the bar patrons applauded politely.

“You take requests?” Jason said, without thinking. 

Tim raised his head, startled, and narrowed his eyes. Shoot, had Jason done something wrong recently? He hasn’t killed short of absolute necessity in ages. He’d even worked with - or at least towards the grudging advantage of - the bats pretty often lately. Tim wasn’t about to call the Big Bad Bats on him, right? Should he run? Would there be much of a point in running? 

“What kind of request?” Tim cut into his awkward rambles, smiling serenely as though he didn’t even recognize Jason, biting into an apple that had been left oxidizing on the music stand.

“Dead Bird Sings,” he says on instinct, as a joke, because apparently when he gets nervous he makes bad puns. Tim just raised an eyebrow.

“Not exactly a song for the piano, but I’ll try,” he plays an arpeggio with more sass than Jason knew was possible. “Will you be singing, then?” 

Jason choked out a strangled laugh. “I wouldn’t wish that on anyone,” he snorts, making a few of the patrons laugh. 

What else was he supposed to say? Jason was under the impression that joking about his death put all of the bats into a pity spiral in which they insist that Jason pretend it had never happened. For his own well being, of course. And yet, here was his very own Replacement, a  _ kid _ that he has  _ shot,  _ playing the punchline to his joke in C major. 

Despite definitely not being suited to a piano solo, Tim managed to make the song recognizable. Jazzier than the original and more interesting for sure, but “Dead Bird Sings” nonetheless. It came to a close too quickly for Jason to leave, and Tim hopped off the bench to sit by him, to the rumbling complaints of his listeners.

“Oh, shush, I’ll be back in just a moment,” Time laughs, “allow me a drink with my brother, yeah?”

“So I’m your brother now, hm?” Jason raises a brow, too nerve-racked to make a Robin-worthy witty aside. He orders a coke to break eye contact.

“By transitive property,” Tim grins. “Wouldn’t have pegged you for a British electro-pop fan.”

“Oh is that what that is? I just call it bad.”

Tim laughs and looks to the bartender. “I’ll have a Long Island Iced Tea, please.”

“Are you even old enough to drink?” Jason mutters under his breath.

“Well, according to this ID in my hands, Drake Jackson is 22 years old, which makes me more legal than you.”

“Not what I asked, babybird. Doesn’t the B-man have the whole thing about intoxicants?” Bruce had always hated when Jason smoked. Used to spend hours lecturing on about the dangers of nicotine, offering whatever help he could in his weird oblivious Bruce way where nothing matters except what must be done. He wouldn’t even drink champagne when playing Brucie, used to carry around a half empty glass all night and have it spilled and refilled periodically for the level changes. Tim just snorts.

“He does, but this isn’t his house so I don’t have to oblige his hypocrisy.”

Their drinks arrive together and for some reason, Jason steals Tim’s. Tim takes the coke with a slight pause and an odd look.

“Well, you’ve gotta oblige mine. I’ll be legal soon, you’ve still got a ways to go.”

Tim huffs. “Only a few years.”

Jason isn’t sure why he’s doing this, but apparently he is so he’s commiting, hypocrisy be damned. He’s a bad role model or whatever, the kid should at least be old enough to vote before being saddled with a membership to the good ol’ vigilante alchoholics society. “Preserve your big ol’ brain, babybird, I’ve heard good things.”

Tim tips his head back and laughs out loud. “It, like the rest of me, is not good enough,” he cackles, clapping Jason on the back like they’re in on a joke. 

Jason is not in on this joke. Jason doesn’t know how the acting CEO of a Fortune 500 company and number 17 on the JL’s roster of Smart People has an inferiority complex. Jason gives Tim his drink back.

The whole responsible adult figure thing isn’t really his sctick anyway. Besides, he doesn’t drink. 

Tim orders him another coke. “I fucked up,” he says.

“Haven’t we all.” They sit in silence for a bit. 

“Damian could have gotten hurt.”

“You  _ did _ get hurt.”

Tim orders another drink and doesn’t respond.

“One time I almost got Dick killed,” Jason says suddenly. “I went after someone I couldn’t handle and he had a knife.”

“So Dick got stabbed for you?”

“In the center of his fuckin’ chest like a murder mystery victim.”

“Was Bruce mad?”

“Who can ever tell.”

“Point.”

“The week he was healing up was the closest Dick and I ever got, though. Played video games with me and told me old circus stories and shit. He was more worried over me and my reckless endangerment than he was worried over himself.”

“... What’s the moral of this story?”

“Fuck if I know.” Jason cracks a smile and nudges Tim with his shoulder. “That we’re fucked up, I guess.”

Tim snorts. “Really? I thought the dressing up in costumes and jumping off buildings was a sign of our exemplar rationality and emotional balance“

Jason chokes on his drink. “Fuck, you’re funny for a bat. Are you allowed to be this irreverent?”

“What’s B gonna do, brood darkly at me?”

“Holy shit, we should hang out more.”

“Come by the manor, then.”

“Not going to happen.”

“Eh, worth a shot.”

Jason laughs. “No but seriously, I know you got what I meant.”

“I did,” Tim groans, “but I don’t want to deal with it.”

“Just don’t go missing, kid. He’s not well-adjusted enough to assume you’re getting some air, he’s going to think you’re dead in a ditch somewhere.”

“Don’t call me kid, you’re like two years older than me.”

“More like three. You gonna think about what I said?”

“Yeah, yeah. I’ll head home after I sober up, I guess.”

“Need a ride?”

“If I say yes will you come in?”

“Fuck, no.”

“Then nah. Thanks, though.”

“No problem.” Jason hesitates. “Will you tell B?”

“What, that you got a coke at a jazz bar? Not unless you want me to.”

“God, no. If you’re sure about the ride, I’m gonna find an establishment with fewer birds.”

“Drive safe, or whatever.”

“Thanks. See you around, baby bird. Or not, I don’t know.”

“Yeah.”

He is halfway to the door when Tim calls out. “Tuesdays.” 

He turns.

“I play here on Tuesdays. Stop by some time.”

Jason smiles. “Play some better music and I’ll think about it.”

“Better- I- you picked the song!” he hears Tim splutter as the door swings closed behind him.

  
  



End file.
